Forgotten Princess
by Helen Cly
Summary: Buffy muses over past events as she struggles to remember Dawn.


Title

****Title: Forgotten Princess  
**Author:** Sobia Helen  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.   
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Distribution:** Want. Take. Have. Just, ask first: [AphroditeH@aol.com][1]  
**Summary:** Buffy muses over past events as she struggles to remember Dawn.  
**Spoilers: **Post 'Tough Love'. Other than that, this fic is pure speculation, with no spoilers.  
**Note:** This is Buffy POV.  
05-17-00_  
  
___~*~  
  
A deep menacing sound vibrated in my bones; Glory was laughing. I stared at her dumbfounded. She shouldn't be laughing; she had just been defeated.   
  
Even now, she stood in the mist of the portal that Willow had opened to send her to her dimension. And there was no way that the portal was closing without her in it.   
  
I held on tight to my rocket launcher, ready to shoot her back in if Glory tried anything. But she wasn't and that's what scared me.  
  
She just kept laughing, and the sound shook me up inside. It wasn't a I'm-happy-to-be-going-home kind of laugh; it was more of a I'm-going-home-*and*-I-have-won kind of laugh.   
  
I didn't get it.  
  
It had been a perfect plan. Dawn had been the one to come up with it. Dawn was the key that Glory needed to jump between dimensions, so if Dawn and Glory were in different dimensions, it figured that Glory wouldn't be able to get to Dawn. And all the better if the dimension Glory ended up in was her home, just to be sure.   
  
But now there she stood, *laughing. *  
  
Despite my better judgment, I glanced back at Dawn to make sure that she was all right. She was leaning against the far wall, her wide eyes glued to Glory. She seemed to be trying her best to disappear, but she was okay.  
  
I turned back to Glory in time to see the portal starting to close. She held her hands together and uttered five foreign syllables before the portal closed and gave way to silence.   
  
And then…  
  
"Buffy!"   
  
I turned back to see Dawn collapse on the floor, gasping in what seemed to be pain. I quickly dropped my weapon, and hurried over to her side.  
  
"Dawn! What is it?" I dropped on my knees beside her, and took both of her hands in mine.  
  
Tears formed in her eyes and slowly started to fall down her cheeks, and I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with her.  
  
"Y-you have to tell me what's wrong, sweetie," I shook her gently.  
  
She opened her mouth, her voice coming out in short breaths, and everything beyond the sound of my name was incomprehensible to me.  
  
"What…" I stopped abruptly, finally seeing what was wrong.   
  
An eerie, greenish glow covered Dawn's skin, making her seem slightly translucent. It engulfed her slowly even as I tried to register what was happening: Dawn was fading away. In helpless desperation, I threw both my arms around her and tried to hold on to her, feeling her arms embrace me as she sobbed.  
  
"Dawn…you have to…I will…it's gonna be…," I finally gave up, not knowing what to say. I just held on, even as I felt her melt into light and then finally fade away completely, until I was hugging myself, alone.   
  
~*~  
  
A half sob escaped my lips as memories of that day flooded me. I wiped away my tears as they started falling on the pages of my diary. My last entry had been about that day...and I had closed the diary that day with the intention of never writing in it again. It had been devoid of any entries about Dawn. And there seemed to be nothing in life worth remembering anymore. Everything about her had just disappeared, like it never was.   
  
That day, I had come back to an empty house. Everything had seemed different; there were things missing that I couldn't put my finger on. I hardly spared it a glance before I slowly climbed up the stairs, and as I passed by Dawn's room, I had stopped and opened the door. The room was dark and devoid of any signs of anyone living there. Boxes were piled against the window, and there was an old dressing table in front of the closet, blocking access to it. Cobwebs had collected in various corners of the ceiling. I stared at the room for a minute more before finally closing the door and heading towards my room. I flipped on the light absently and closed the door. My eyes wandered and finally stopped at the pair of earrings on my dressing table, the earrings Dawn had been wearing when she…went away. I walked to the dresser, and picked up the earrings, tracing their shape with my fingertips. Finally, I let them drop to the floor, and went about my regular routine, getting dressed for bed.  
  
As I took my shirt off, I caught the sight of my upper right arm in the mirror, and froze. The skin there was flawless.  
  
Dawn had been around six, and we were eating dessert while Mom and Dad watched a movie upstairs. As we were finishing up, the two of us had gotten into a food fight, and it was all fun until Dawn ran out of food to throw. She simply picked up the nearest object and hit me with it, which just happened to be a fork. It had not hurt much, but I had made sure that Dawn got punished for that little stunt. That incident had left a faint, white imprint on my upper arm.  
  
But now, the skin was clear, as if that day had never happened. It was then that I finally accepted the fact that Dawn really was gone.   
  
I collapsed on the floor and picked up the earrings, rocking back and forth slowly as I hugged them to me. I wanted to go to the demon dimension and demand that Glory give Dawn back to me. I wanted to kill those monks for giving me Dawn and then taking her away from me so completely. I did nothing as anger gave way to tears, and soon my murderous thoughts were drowned as sob after sob racked my body.  
  
~*~  
  
I used to think that I would remember everything. Every little talk, every little fight, every smile, every touch. Everything.  
  
But memories have this way of fading away with time…of course, it doesn't help if that process is moving at a supernatural speed.  
  
It's only been a year, and already I have forgotten so much.  
  
Already, it's hard to picture her smile. Already, the little details have left my memory.  
  
Already it seems like Dawn is on her way to being lost forever in oblivion.  
~*~  
  
When Dawn and I were younger, Mom used to read to us before we went to bed. Two stories every night; one for me, and one for Dawn. And Dawn used to make Mom read the same story *every* night, and to make it even worse for me, she insisted that the princess in the story be called Dawn instead of whatever her name was. The name of that story is already lost on me.  
  
But as we grew older, I had to read to her, and I refused to call the princess by Dawn's name. It was ridiculous, I never did get why she did that. She used to pout all the while as I read to her, but she never told me to change the heroine's name; she knew that that would mean that I wouldn't read to her anymore.  
  
  
And now, I couldn't figure out why I did that. It was such a little thing to ask. It's funny how one could so easily remember the things they did, but as time passes by, they forget *why* they did it.  
  
  
The night after Mom's funeral, I had gone up to the attic and found that storybook for Dawn. I had read it to her as she fell asleep, and I had remembered to call the princess Dawn.  
  
Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. The name was now beginning to sound like something out of a storybook. A forgotten princess from a make believe fairytale. Someone I couldn't quite remember…much like the name of the story. Someone I wanted to remember.   
  
With that thought in mind, I picked up a pen and began to write about her, so even if I forget her, I'll still have her. I struggled with the words as I searched my memory for the past events. It was almost as if I could feel the memories leaving my head.  
  
The general big stuff was easier to remember, but the little details were getting harder and harder to recall.  
  
I remember the color of her eyes, but have forgotten the intensity of them gazing at me.  
  
I have forgotten the sound of her laugh, the length of her hair, the touch of her skin.  
  
And when I close my eyes, I am unable to picture her face. It's fading away from my memory, like she did from my life, from everyone's lives. Though I seem to be the only one who remembers her, and when I talk about her, everyone just stares at me with this ambiguous expression on their faces, like they are going to tell me to seek help.   
  
And maybe, I do need help.  
  
Maybe, this is all just in my head.  
  
Maybe, just maybe, this is all a bad dream, and when I wake up, she'll be there.   
  
~*~End~*~  
  
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   [1]: mailto:AphroditeH@aol.com
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